


LabRats

by Demitria_Teague



Series: LabRats [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Anal Sex, Angst, Biological Experimentation, Cold Torturer, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Injections, Jotunn!Loki, Jotunn!Loki/Tony, Loki Feels, Loki-centric, M/M, Magic, More to be added as they appear - Freeform, Nature Magic, Physical changes due to biological experimention, Slow Burn...maybe, Space Creature, Struggle to survive, They both need a Hug, Tony Feels, Tony-centric, Torture, Touch Deprivation, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demitria_Teague/pseuds/Demitria_Teague
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony Stark and Loki are abducted by an inhuman scientist whose motivation is to change their physiological makeup in order to feed them to an organic space creature, they must work together in a bull-headed struggle to survive the day to day life as LabRats, while also trying to figure out a way to escape before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Abducted

Tony hadn’t even opened his eyes yet when his body registered pain everywhere. It felt like something had tried to suck every cell in his body out and had quit just before the cells had broken through the skin. He gasped again when he tried to move and he realized that the pain reached deeper than skin level. It felt like every joint of his skeleton had moved closer together and like the opposite end was rubbing against the one it was connected to. His lungs felt sore, like he’d smoked three packs of cigarettes in one day after not having smoked in years. 

What was going on? It hurt to breath and even though his self preservation instinct was screaming at him to open his eyes and prepare to defend himself, he just couldn’t. The only thing besides pain that registered in his brain was that he was breathing in cold air. He felt it on his nostrils or the back of his throat, depending on if he breathed in through his nose or mouth and the coldness spread through his lungs. The more he breathed in, the colder it got and it wasn’t long before he was shivering. 

The pain eventually faded to a deep internal full body ache and he was so used to feeling more pain when he moved that he naturally didn’t react when he heard felt something bump into his left shoe. He heard a groan a second later and if he wasn’t mistaken it sounded more angry than anything. Like a growl, rather than a groan, but it sounded human, so it didn’t give him too much of a reason to start panicking. 

“What…” He heard a smooth voice say and it sounded like it was coming somewhere off to his left and a little higher than his head. “Where…” This time the voice came out breathy, like the person speaking had just realized that things were stranger than what they’d originally thought. Something in the back of Tony’s mind stirred and his brow furrowed as he tried to figure out why.

There was a scuffing sound. Shoes moving on ground and then… “You have got to be kidding me. Stark!” 

Tony’s eyes popped open the second he recognized the voice, then rough hands were on him and he was being roughly hauled to his feet. He had a second to take in Loki’s angry face and note that his hands were still cuffed before the soreness in his body flared up to full blown pain. Hissing, he Involuntarily tried to get as far away from him as possible. It was too much, too much and Loki’s grip was too strong. 

“Ah,” he cried out. “Hurts.” His head thrashed from side to side and Loki must have felt the way his body was shaking, because his grip loosened and he crumpled to the ground in the fetal position. A sharp pain shot through his stomach and a sweat broke out along his skin. He started gagging and he didn’t expect Loki to help him to his knees a second before he puked his guts out, but he did. 

The pain from the contact was dulled by the way his stomach muscles violently contracted. By the time he was done he wanted to die, so bad. He groaned and started to move back. He registered the sound of the chain which was connected to Loki’s cuffs moving, as he removed his hands from his sides and he didn’t have the clarity to process the weirdness of all that. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, Tony pushed himself up until he was on his knees, then he carefully lowered himself to a sitting position. 

He took in deep breaths until he felt like he could think straight, then he turned to face the last person he’d expected to be in such close proximity to, ever again. Loki was standing up, shoulders drawn back and looking down his nose at him. “So,” he said and he realized that he was still a little winded. The only reaction he got was a very tiny crease between his brows. “Fancy meeting you here,” he added, grinning. 

Loki eyes widen slightly and his nostrils flared. For a few seconds, Tony thought he was going to attack him, but he didn’t. He blinked, once, twice, then looked up, which prompted him to do the same thing. Then, he looked all around him. They appeared to be in a tiny cave with no door. Fantastic.

\------

The human had been talking non-stop since they’d woken up and Loki’d had just about enough of it. He wanted to choke the life out of him. The only reason he didn’t was because his instincts were telling him not to. If the two of them were the only ones brought to this place there had to be a reason why and he doubted that the forces behind it would allow his demise. 

“...seriously, though,” the human said and he couldn’t help, but notice that he kept a reasonable distance from his current location. It was very wise, because he may not be able to kill him, but he could knock him around a little bit. The physical discomfort he’d experienced when he’d grabbed him earlier had been an after effect from whatever force brought them here. He was also feeling some effects himself and he wasn’t about to tell him that. “Who locks someone in a cave with no door? It’s tacky.”

“It’s effective,” he snapped. He turned away from him and ran his hand over the cold surface of the cave wall. Closing his eyes, he directed his senses into the pores beneath his palm and it only took him a few seconds to realize that there was nothing there. The feeling he got from it was that there had once been life, and it was now dormant. He had no warning when it happened. Gasping, eyes popping open, he jerked his hand away from the wall the moment he felt like his mind was starting to be pulled forward by some force that used suction.

He shook his hand to erase the residual sensation. This was not good. When he looked at the human he realized that he’d taken his reaction to heart. He seemed nervous, which was good, because they were in deep deep trouble. 

\------

The moment Loki had opened his mouth to do what he’d figured he was going to do, which was explain why he’d reacted so strangely to touching a wall, a deep rumble started under their feet and by the time it’d traveled over their heads the entire room was shaking so bad that Tony had to go to his knees in order to not fall over. When it stopped it didn’t do it gradually like it done when it’d started. It became so quiet and so still, so fast, that it made him feel like the room was expanding and the hairs on the back of his neck started rising. They both looked around and Tony hesitated for a second before he stood back up. It wasn’t the shaking or the rumbling that got to him. 

He’d experienced a lot of that with his lifestyle as IronMan. No, his freaking house had fallen on top of him while he’d been trapped underwater and he’d only marginally panicked then. The thing that made his heartbeat speed up and goosebumps break out along his skin was the fact that whatever it was that was happening right now seemed to be in direct reaction to Loki’s reaction from touching the cave wall. The uncertainty grew when he physically felt something in the room change. He figured that Loki must have felt it to by the way he took a step back and his expression hardened. 

Loki was facing forward and his gaze was directed towards part of the wall on Tony’s right. 

“What is it?” Tony asked.

“Something’s coming.” 

He wasn’t going to demand answers when he looked like that. Not have his suit made him feel spectacularly vulnerable and even though he was like something like eighty-five percent sure that Loki wasn’t going to protect him, he still moved closer to him. He blinked when he felt another shift in the room and this time he felt his body start to grow warm in response to it. “What the hell is going on,” he said. 

As they waited, Loki’s shoulders kept lowering. By the time a small slit appeared in the cave wall he reminded Tony of a feral animal prepared to launch itself at the first thing that came into it’s eye-line. He couldn’t shake the thought that even though Loki was dangerous, whatever they were about to meet was going to be worse. He really hoped that he was wrong, but the logical part of his brain was telling him that they were in so much trouble.

\------

The slit in the door was a bright blue color and in the blink of an eye it became a round opening, revealing a creature whose form revealed little about it’s sex or species. It had box shaped shoulders, which to Tony registered as male and it’s skin was a faded shade of dark pink. It wore no clothing and had no hair. The length of it’s arms was proportional to it’s body and it only had three fingers, what appeared to be a middle and index finger and a thumb. It’s shoulders hunched forward, it’s paunch stomach was made prominent by the way it’s toe-less feet pointed outwards. 

It didn’t have any hair and the strangest thing of all was the fact that it didn’t have eyes or a mouth. Unlike horror movies, it didn’t have the spaces on it’s face where those parts of it’s body should be. There was no doubt in his mind that it had never had them. Tony was watching it intently, unsure what he was supposed to do in this situation. Should he attack it and if he did would it be crazy strong like Loki? 

The way that it continued to remain motionless unnerved him. He glanced at Loki out of the corner of his eye and hissed, “What the hell is that?”

Silence.

Curious, Tony turned his head to look at him and he wasn’t prepared for the expression on his face. His heart dropped into his stomach and he suddenly found it hard to breath. Loki’s eyes were slightly widened and his cuffed hands were clenched into fists. To the untrained eye, he may have appeared slightly surprised, but still ferocious. As it was, he was Tony Stark, Iron Man, one of the men who had fought against him and witnessed his raging madness, and he knew that anything that could make him react this way was something infinitely more dangerous.

Loki looked scared and the way that his muscles were tensed was different than they’d been before the pink creature thing had walked in. Instead of looking like he was going to rush it and take it out, he looked like if that thing tried to touch him he was going to take steps back, keep himself as far away from it as possible. “Loki,” he demanded. 

Loki’s eyes flicked to his then and he was happy to see a little bit of that original anger flicker in them. Loki’s chest heaved heavily, once, twice, as he took in deep breaths to, Tony guessed, calm himself, then he was looking at the pink creature thing again. “Don’t touch it,” he hissed.

Oh there was no problem there. “Didn’t plan on,” he stage whispered, slightly turning his head towards him, while keeping his eyes on the creature. 

There was no warning. Suddenly Tony’s legs muscles were spasming and he cried out from startled shock more than pain. It felt like an electric voltage was shooting up both of his legs, then it was gone and they collapsed. He heard the sound of something heavy land beside him and he looked over to see Loki on his hands and knees, panting into the cave floor. Sweat had broken out on his brow and Tony had a second to note it before a pressure closed on his arm. 

He hadn’t had enough time to recover and he reacted too slowly. Two sharp pains exploded through his arm. “Motherfucker,” he yelled, because he’d been injected with something. He hadn’t seen a needle, but he recognized that pin-prick sensation and it had sounded like it’d come from some type of injector gun and not a syringe. The creature let go of his arm and started walking towards Loki. Tony tried to grab for it, but his body got hot, then cold, then hot again, all in the span of a second and his eyes widened, because it was too much. 

His system couldn’t figure out how to react to it. His hands dropped to the ground. On his hands and knees his eyes pointed to the cave floor, but he saw nothing. The only thing that he could register was the way his body temperature rapidly flipped back and forth from hot to cold, hot to cold. A deep pain started to claw its way through his left side, then the same kind of aches started to come from other areas of his body. His right shoulder, his stomach, his left ear, his… He passed out.

\------

Loki tried to crawl back away from creature, but his legs had achieved a state of paralysis that left him mostly helpless. He knew what would happen if he punched it or made any kind of skin to skin contact and this knowledge did nothing to stop the inevitable. In an attempt to stay away from it as long as possible, he landed on his side and tried to pull himself away from it with his hands. Just because his legs wouldn’t move, didn’t mean he couldn’t feel anything in them. He squeezed the dirt that was between his fingers when he felt the tall tale of injections in his skin. 

He cursed his long legs and his pathetic state. Growling, he tried to lash out at the creature. It was turned away from him, heading for the door. It didn’t acknowledge the moment when part of it’s stomach came away with Loki’s fingers. He stared, wide eyed at the sickly toned flesh leaking from his pale hand as the creature kept walking. 

There was no sound as it stepped out of the room and the opening became the cave wall again.

His temples started to throb and his body heated up. It felt like his temperature kept blinking in and out, in and out. Hot, nothing, hot nothing. The sweat on his body increased and his chest started heaving as it became hard for him to draw in his breaths. Each breath felt like it grew hot a second before it reached his lungs. A sharp pain started clawing it’s way through his stomach, then the same kind of pain started in different parts of his body. Before long his entire body was so unbearable that he wanted to claw his own skin off. He thinks he may have screamed at one point. When darkness finally takes him he doesn’t know it.


	2. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has fun annoying Loki. Loki notices a few changes in himself, which may or may not be related to the injections they received.

Loki awoke to the feeling of something poking him in the cheek. He peeked his eyes open and the first thing he saw was Stark kneeling over him, his index finger hovering near his head. He glared at him.

Grinning, Stark held his hands out in surrender position. “Mornin’, Princess,” he said, in a mockingly cheerful tone. “I would’ve made breakfast, but, uh…” He mimed looking around.

“Shut up,” he said in annoyance, pushing him out his space. Stark fell on his butt, and started laughing, which just annoyed him even more. 

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine when you first wake up?”

He almost told him to shut up again, but it made him feel foolish, because he knew he’d be playing right into his game of childish nonsense. He resisted groaning as he sat up. His body felt stiff and bending his legs took a little extra effort than usual. 

“How long do you figure we’ve been out,” Stark asked, standing up.

When Loki looked at him, he had his hands on his hips and was looking around, like the sight of bare cave walls could help him tell time. Fool, he thought. Ignoring him, he flexed the muscles in his legs to try and loosen them up. The state his body was in had to do with the combination of being injected and being on such a hard surface for so long. Closing his eyes, he took in a deep breath and straightened his spine. He recognized the cold for what it was. 

Unlike a planet, it was absent of any kind of heat what so ever, which confirmed his fears that they were, indeed, in space. As he tried to reach out further to feel for the connection he always used to summon his powers, he frowned. He pushed out further. Nothing. It wasn’t that he couldn’t find the connection, but it was like his mental capabilities weren’t working. Angrily, he opened his eyes. 

Stark was studying the wall that the pink creature had come through earlier. 

“What are you doing?” He demanded.

He looked at him and… smiled. Then, he cheerfully said, “I was just curious. I wonder how it works.”

“It’s not a machine.” He realized that he shouldn’t have said anything when the man turned to face him with more curiosity in his expression. Damn it! He wanted to pull a cloak of shadow over his form to avoid the incessant questions that he knew he was about to ask. “No,” he yelled.

Stark froze for a second, then his smile got bigger. “No, what?”  


“I don’t care if this thing devours you whole. We are not suddenly friends, because are trapped together. Do not speak to me.” He practically hissed the last part out.

“Aaw, someone didn’t get their toast this morning,” he said, one side of his mouth curving up into a…

“Smirk,” he ground out. 

Stark cupped an behind his ear. “What was that,” he said sarcastically. “Didn’t quite catch it.”

“If this thing would no doubt attack me I’d crush every bone in your body you insolent little worm.”

“Welp, lucky for me, then, huh?” He puffed his bottom lip out in satisfaction and cockily walked to the other side of the cave to look at the wall opposite from the one he’d been at. 

Loki’s bared his teeth and turned his back to him.

\------

Tony had woke up feeling fine and had been surprised when Loki had remained unconscious way longer than he had. His poking and prodding to get him to wake up had been fueled by boredom. Testing a God’s patience wasn’t smart. He knew that, but he just didn’t care and since he hadn’t already tried to kill him he figured that where they were had everything to do with it. Making Loki angry, knowing he couldn’t kill him, had been oh so sweet. 

The ‘God’ had turned his back on him, like a little spoiled bratty prince and that had made him mentally fist pump the air and do a few back flips. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been awake and he’d ran his hands over nearly every inch of cave wall he could reach. 

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t touch what part of it was over his head, because he knew that the only way out was through the entrance created by their lovely resident doctor of the pink flesh. Just when he’d thought he’d seen everything some weird creature had abducted him, injected him and locked him up with the insane ‘God’ who had been scheduled to go back to Asgard with Thor. Speaking of Thor, he wondered what he was doing at this very moment. Did he think that Loki had just escaped. What about him? 

He wondered if Pepper had figured out that he was missing yet. They’d had a date planned the day after Thor was supposed to take Loki back to Asgard. He wasn’t going to worry about all that just yet. How long had they been here, anyway?

“Yo, Goldylocks,” he called out from his spot against the wall the entrance had appeared. Loki ignored him. “Hello, I’m talking to you.” He grinned when he looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Hi.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Loki said in a toneless voice. 

“Thank you, I’ve been called many things and ridiculous is high up on my list. Try again.”

Rolling his eyes, he looked away from him again. 

“Is this how you deal with a problem? You just sit there and pretend like nothing’s going on?”

He looked at him again, expression calm, and said, “By all means, let’s here what brilliant ideas you’ve concocted.” 

Looking up at the cave ceiling, he said, “Well, first I thought about using C4 to blow out the roof, then flying away on a jet-fueled rocket pack. Unfortunately, those things aren’t as safe as they try to make them look. Way too unstable and the C4 would probably kill me first. Dying in a fiery explosion isn’t my idea of fun. Then I thought about rushing the little pink dude, but uh… injections, pain.”

“Yeah. Not cool. Speaking of that. Do you know what the hell that thing did to us?”

Loki sighed. “Were you not there? He injected us.”

“Yeah, I got that, thanks. I meant the point. Why did he inject us?” When he realized he wasn’t going to answer, he rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. What do I have to do to get answers out of you? Do… do you want a strip tease? Cuz I am so all over that.”

His brows drew together in confusion. “A what?”

At first he thought he was messing with him and when he realized he wasn’t he said, “Seriously? You don’t know what a strip tease is? What planet have you been living on? What have you been doing with your time? You’re so old.”

“What did you do with all those hundreds of years of your life?” When his confused expression didn’t change, Tony threw his head back and laughed. It wasn’t like he’d actually intended to give Loki a striptease… well… no… but him not knowing what one was… He wiped at his eyes when tears started to form. “You’re just…” 

He laughed some more. “I don’t… I just can’t.” This was too good. 

\------ 

More time passed and Tony picked up on the fact that Loki was paying extra attention to the wall where the entrance had appeared. Part of him wanted to ask if he could tell when the pink creature thing was coming or if it was like right outside and about to come in, but the part of him that was dreading their next visit didn’t. He ground his teeth and kept his mouth shut. 

\------

Loki made a face as a strange scent flooded his nostrils. It wasn’t unpleasant or even pleasant. It was just strong. It took him a few inhales before he could stand it enough to pay attention to it. It took him a minute to realize that strong registered as something other than just an intense flavor. Another inhale and the Strong spread out to present something sweet. 

Another inhale, then he realized that the sweet was like the Strong. It literally meant Sweet or Kind, which was beyond strange. When he inhaled again, the only thing he got was that familiar Space cold. He blinked and sniffed the air a few more times, only to get the same thing. He wondered if the walls weren’t giving off some strange odor meant to paralyze them in preparation for their next round of injections. 

For a split second, he considered asking Stark if he’d smelled the strange odor that registered as personality traits, then he mentally kicked himself for having had such a thought. He did not care.

\------

When the pink creature showed up again, there was just enough time before he was injected, for Tony to be able to glance outside of the entrance to see a wall that seemed to stretch out on both sides. A hallway? Then, his legs gave out without him feeling the voltage that had caused it before. The creature got him in the back of his left shoulder this time, because he had tried to pull himself forward by just his hands. He heard Loki growl just before he heard that injection gun sound again.

**Author's Note:**

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